Meat (Hidden Vegetable) Lasagna

If your household is anything like mine, you probably have some picky eaters. My sous chef doesn't like squash, zucchini, or big chunks of onions or peppers. But he likes this lasagna and all those things are in it. My trick is to mask the veggies by shredding them in a food processor and mixing into different layers of the dish. The result: a wonderful dinner full of vegetables. I put meat into this lasagna but you could make it without and just double up on the veggie sauce.

Ricotta mixture: 15 oz part skim ricotta, 1 egg, 3 tbsp parmesan cheese, 1 yellow squash, shredded using food processor. Combine in a bowl and set aside.

 Veggie Mixture: Sautee 1/4 c yellow onion, diced. One green pepper - chopped finely and one zucchini chopped finely (again-I used the food processor). The pepper will be very watery if done in the processor. If you can- chop it finely. If your making this for someone who's not the hugest fan - then process it.

Add one container of high quality tomato sauce. Stir and set aside.

 Meat mixture: half pound italian sausage (ground without casing) and about half a pound of ground beef. I used 90% lean sirloin. 

 Add another jar of high quality tomato sauce. Set aside. 

 Now we do our layers. I like to put a bit of water in my tomato sauce jar and dump the watered down leftover sauce into the bottom of my baking dish. This is a trick my mom taught me. It helps to keep the lasagna from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add a layer of lasagna pasta.

 Top with the veggie mixture then add another layer of pasta. 

 Top with ricotta cheese mixture and then add another layer of pasta.

 Add meat mixture...no more pasta.

 Top with one package of part skim mozzarella cheese and sprinkle parsley on top.

  I made one normal sized lasagna and one small sized lasagna with this recipe. You can freeze one and cook it later. Woo hoo!